Harry and Merope to the Rescue - Chapter 32

Disclaimer:

I don't own the HP universe, unfortunately.

Note: For those that have received a notification regarding an update, I've only updated I typo I saw when I was rereading this chapter to refresh my memory for the current chapter I'm working on.

Wizarding Britain was in a panic at the news of Dumbledore's death and Mad-Eye Moody had been directed by the Minister to make this investigation his top priority. Rather than pulling his limited number of experienced aurors off of their current caseload, Moody chose to handle the investigation himself, which would then leave his less experienced aurors to handle the petty cases. He knew that bringing in HP Investigations was also an option, but he wanted to save that option as a backup plan and not get used to calling on Hadrian Potter for help every time there was something to investigate. He would rather save that option for cases that needed to remain covert or that he felt his team couldn't handle.

While Moody was heading up the investigation, Harry split his time between spending time with his family and following Moody's investigation in stealth mode. While Harry was tailing Moody's investigation in the headmaster's office he decided he may as well remove all the pranks he had left laying around that Dumbledore hadn't managed to find yet. He debated with himself about the memories and the pensieve, but in the end, he decided to revert them back as they were prior to all memory distortion charms and runes. After removing all his pranks, Harry leaned back on the wall to watch Moody search the office for any evidence that would be linked to the old goat's demise.

Harry's ears perked up when he heard Moody say, "Damn you, Albus. Why couldn't you leave well enough alone? The boy didn't need your interfering ways." Moody continued to shuffle through all the notes that he had discovered. "Damn, you really had it in for the Potters, didn't you? Good thing Hadrian Potter arrived when he did, from the looks of it, everything would have gone to shite if everything had gone according to your plans, you blasted fool."

Although Harry was pretty sure of what he would find when he looked over Moody's shoulder, he was still surprised to see so many of the plans Dumbledore had made in order to turn Harry into the perfect little weapon. Scarily, it all would have happened, too, had something not happened at the Dursleys to throw everything off track. What was shocking, yet at the same time not surprising, was that Dumbledore had known all along that Peter Pettigrew was the spy in the Order, but he decided that gaining control over Little Harry outweighed the loss of the Potters. He had even written down the plan he had made with Molly Weasley, including the money and indoctrination of her children to make friends with the Boy-Who-Lived, in addition to encouraging young Ginevra's hero worship.

Then there were the notes on horcruxes and how he suspected the Potter child to have one in his scar. Upon seeing that Harry heard Moody mumble to himself, "Well, I guess I'll have to talk to Potter about the child sooner than I intended to." Harry just shook his head, though he wasn't really shocked at the revelation, seeing as how he had dropped a few hints, he was actually a little surprised Moody hadn't confronted him about it sooner.

Next, there were notes about the Longbottoms and what Dumbledore's plans were if Voldemort had chosen to go after them instead. Harry shook his head at the audacity of the man, he had planned to stage an accident for Neville's Gran and any other close family members, so that Dumbledore could make sure the child went to where he wanted him to go, in order to be raised in such a way that Neville would view him as a savior upon starting school at Hogwarts.

In older notes, there were his plans and actions in regards to Tom Marvalo Riddle; finding the child in the orphanage, his fear that the child would grow to be more powerful than himself, and plans to encourage everyone to distrust him. He wrote about his frustration at not being able to do much while Tom was in school, as he was not the headmaster at that time.

What really seemed to shock Moody to his core was the journal he found about the Deathly Hallows and their link to the Potters, in addition to the plans he had made with Gellert Grindelwald and his remorse at having to end their relationship and association with the man he had once loved.

Moody shook his head and said to himself, "Well, there's enough evidence here to prove that the man was a menace that should have been removed from all positions of power a long time ago. A trip to St. Mungo's for a psych evaluation wouldn't have been amiss either, this man was more crazy than people consider me." Sighing Moody turned his attention to the pensieve and all the memories there that seemed to be labeled in initials and/or code. He probably wasn't going to understand the codes until after he viewed the memories, but he didn't intend to stay here all night, so he pulled out his shrunken trunk and started loading all the memory vials, journals, and notes very carefully inside. Then he shut the cabinet where he left the pensieve, after making sure that it had no memory left in it.

Harry watched as Moody shrunk the trunk, returning it to its place in his pocket, then doing a double-check of the office to make sure nothing was missed. Seeming satisfied that nothing of import was being left behind, Moody started for the door when he heard someone say behind him, "Alastor, I must insist you return my memories and notes where you found them." Causing both Harry and Moody to turn around and find Dumbledore's portrait had decided to wake up.

Moody glared at the idiot and said, "Now, why would I be doing that Albus?"

Dumbledore's portrait blinked and shook his head before saying, "Well, because I'm going to need them after you help me resurrect myself."

Harry felt the dread start creeping up the back of his spine. Surely this idiot had not made a horcrux in his own time, had he? Harry shook his head. Certainly if he had, he would have left instructions for someone on how to resurrect him. This must be one of few differences between the timelines, Harry thought to himself.

Moody glared at the portrait and said, "Actually, you'll find that I won't be helping you do that, and there's nothing you can do that will convince me to do so. I'm only here to investigate how you died; would you care to tell me how that came about?"

The portrait frowned and said, "I found the Potter child, using a device I invented, and was on my way to retrieve him when I struck some very nasty wards. I don't remember anything after that."

Moody nodded his head, "The wards were what we suspected, but not the reason. Thanks, Albus. Now I can close this case and be done with it."

The Dumbledore in the portrait nodded and then said, "Now, about my resurrection - " Only to be cut off by Moody.

"Albus, I will not help you get resurrected. You're always going on about the next great adventure, surely, you should be actually enjoying your next great adventure and leave this adventure to the ones who are still around," said Moody.

The portrait didn't seem to have a response, so Moody nodded and turned around to leave again, muttering to himself about idiots and horcruxes.

Harry remained alone in the office for a moment and thought. If the old goat had made a horcrux, how would his portrait be animated? Weren't the portraits of the headmasters magically created upon the death of a headmaster? Maybe there would be something about the possible horcrux written in the evidence that Moody took with him, Harry just needed to wait and see if Moody decided to talk to him about it, before he tried to look more into it.

A Few Weeks Later:

Mad-Eye finally concluded his review of all the memories and concluded reading all the journals and notes. If he hadn't had such a strong stomach from his years as an auror, he would have emptied it into his wastebasket. The one thing he was thankful to have discovered was that Dumbledore had been dumb enough to make his own wand his horcrux, and that item was burnt to a crisp when Dumbledore was executed by those wards. Now it was time to brief the Minister on his conclusions and determine how much of his findings should be released to the Daily Prophet for publication to the general public.

Another thing that needed doing was getting the Minister's direction on how to handle the Weasleys. Based upon the evidence located in Dumbledore's notes, it didn't appear as if money had changed hands as yet, nor had there been anything except talking and making plans at this point. So the Weasleys have yet to have actually done anything for which they could be arrested; however, they had colluded with the child's self-appointed magical guardian to steal from said child and lead him to his death.

THE DAILY PROPHET

LIFE AND LIES OF ALBUS PERCIVAL WULFRIC BRIAN DUMBLEDORE

By: Rita Skeeter

Dear Readers, the Ministry has just released the results of the investigation into Headmaster Dumbledore's death, and you won't believe the lies and deceit that were packed into that long fluffy beard of his!

It has been brought to light that the man was just as evil as You-know-Who and was, in fact, partly to blame for the rise of You-Know-Who. More on this can be read about in my upcoming book, Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore.

Additionally, Dumbledore was past friends and lovers with the dark lord he is famous for defeating, Gellert Grindelwald himself! The full story regarding this will also be included in my new book.

The man was well aware that Peter Pettigrew was the spy and cold-heartedly sacrificed the Potters in order to gain control of young Harry Potter, who as it turns out was prophesied to defeat You-Know-Who, and gain access to the child's inheritance. Additional information regarding this shall be forthcoming in future articles.

There is now an ongoing investigation into the family of Arthur Weasley, as it seems his wife was in some sort of collusion with Dumbledore in regards to the Boy-Who-Lived. Details are scarce at this time, but will be published as more information is brought to light.

The information of the location and well-being of the Boy-Who-Lived is nonexistent, it seems that he was taken from the home of what appears to have been abusive muggles, who by reports were the child's aunt and uncle on his mother's side. The muggles were brutally murdered, but it seems the child was taken. There is now an ongoing investigation as to his whereabouts. We learned at the trial of Sirius Black that the child had been misplaced by none other than Albus Dumbledore, we can only hope that the child is still alive and well. Owls sent to one Hadrian Potter requesting a statement came back undeliverable, and so far all owls sent to Harry James Potter have the same result.

Harry put down the newspaper and looked at Merope, who raised her eyebrows in question and asked, "Well, what now?"

Harry shrugged and said, "I suppose we should get everyone together to see what their thoughts are. Do we come clean with the fact that we have adopted the Boy-Who-Lived? I don't really want Little Harry to grow up like that kind of burden like I did, but at the same time Wizarding Britain is just stupid enough to treat him as if he's the Boy-Who-Lived anyways, even if he no longer has the scar."

Merope nodded in sympathy and said, "We'll gather the family and weigh the pros and cons together, and come up with a Marauder worthy plan, regardless of how much information, if any, that we choose to give."

Harry smiled and said, "I like the way you think, love."